Show Don't Tell (LD+A)

Photorealistic project renderings can be a potent arrow in the designer’s quiver

By Jon Brooks, Andi Walter, and Steph Powell

We’ve all seen them. Our favorite home-renovation shows on HGTV that feature impressive and beautiful transformations of houses—from dingy, old, cluttered spaces into open, bright, updated dream homes for this week’s happy couple or hopeful family. Often, to aid in the visualization of the final product, a dynamic animation of a photorealistic rendering is included, panning around the entire space, and showing walls/appliances/furniture sliding into place, almost as if by magic.

Nowadays, photorealistic, animated renderings of a completed space, down to the place setting, are an expectation of viewers of HGTV and other mainstream design networks. This wide-reaching influence on residential and commercial construction and design will also become more of a necessity for lighting designers and architects to keep pace.

AE DesignSeptember 2, 2021